


112th Annual Hunger Games

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Bandom, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, And a WIP, And there are side stories, Canon-Typical Major Character Deaths, Canon-Typical Violence, District 10, FUSION - NO SERIOUSLY FUSION, Frank is a Victor, Gerard is a Victor, Headcanon, M/M, Music is central to the fascist dictatorship, Panem, Panic are Stylists, Patrick is a Tribute, Personal Canon, Pete is a Stylist, That are 10000-5000ish each, The Capitol, The Hunger Games Never Happened, This fic is 40000 words long, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1356991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From District 10, Tributes Patrick Stumph(18) and Bebe Rexha(13). May the Odds Be Ever In Their Favor.</p><p>Or</p><p>Patrick doesn't want to fight but growing up in the cattle/butchery center of District 10 did give him a few skills. He's one of the lucky few with a talent to perform in the Opening Ceremonies required musical pageantry so he will do that too. He will let them groom him and fluff him and do whatever they need to because Patrick wants to live damn it. He wants to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hat Day at Wrigley Field

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jankato](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jankato).



> WIP AMNESTY!! This fic is unfinished and unbetaed. However? It's 40,000 words long so I figured someone might want to read it. If you want to ask questions, feel free. Its unfinished so I may answer it or it may inspire me to write more but I will answer it because I HATE unfinished stories so I wont do that to you.
> 
> Note: I used as much book canon as I could basically stopping right before the trilogy itself and with a focus on music. If you think you recognize a name? You do. District, Capitol, Victor, Game, and all other Panem details you dont recognize from the book or movie are mine with the exception of the focus on music. I'm actually fairly sure thats either ariadne83 or girlmarauders. 
> 
> I'll be posting a chunk a day until I run out of chunks then the side pieces. Enjoy!

Patrick Stumph lives in a world where many things are wrong. Many things. Almost everything, it could be said. Andy often argues that everything in Panem is wrong. But Andy is four years older than he is and made it through all his Reapings in one piece so Andy has a little bit of room to talk, doesn’t he? He doesn't talk too much usually, because there are Peacekeepers everywhere, making sure no one gets handsy and takes home some meat for themselves but sometimes, they talk. 

Most of the time, Patrick eats a quiet lunch outside in the fresh air with Andy, who will pull away from his duties with the dairy cows. Patrick ignores the fact that Andy's moved out of the slaughter houses and into the herds while Patrick is still stuck there, with the sweat and the stink and the sound of things dying. It makes sense, he thinks. It does, he knows it does, that children of Reaping age are responsible for the slaughter and butchering of the livestock in District 10. It's part of their duties – go to school, manage with the slaughter and butcher of animals for meat, go home. He just doesn’t like it. 

Patrick is and has always been resigned to the work because it's temporary and he has known his whole life that in District 10, children of Reaping age worked the slaughter houses. It's a simple fact of life. Just like he knew that once a year there was a Reaping his whole life. Just like he knew that there were Hunger Games to watch once a year his whole life. It's like the phases of the moon or the way the winds blow cold of the huge lake that boarders the wasteland to the north. It just _is_.

Once, right before he started in the slaughter houses, Patrick had asked his mother why he had to go, why the adults couldn't do it especially since they did get paid, albeit very little for the trouble. His mother had frowned and pulled him tight into his arms. She was thin, so thin, just like all the other mothers, just like everyone else. Patrick's older brothers both put their lots in to the Reaping twice to keep them fed and they're still hungry. So she looks at him, and she had said, on a sigh, "We want you to be ready. Just in case."

That, Patrick had thought, makes very little sense. "Ready," he repeated because at that age, readiness for anything besides school and bed was a bit beyond him. "Ready for what?" 

She'd stroked his strawberry-blond hair back from his forehead and kissed the crown his head. "Don't worry about it for now. Just do a good job. Every cent you bring home helps, you know." She'd smiled thinly and he'd smiled back wide and unaware.

On his first day, Patrick figures out what his mother meant. He starts the day after his twelfth birthday, just like all District 10 children, an hour after he gets out of school and an older girl, a few months shy of nineteen with fingers stained red and a grim set to her features took him by the hand and led him over to a large pig in a metal pen. It was black and white and nearly as tall as he was. Patrick had watched, horror-struck, as the girl struck the snorting creature right between the eyes with a large hammer while a Peacekeeper watched, gun fully armed. The animals eyes rolled back in its head, stunned and she held out a long sharp knife. "Go on," she said gently. "Take it."

"What?"

Without waiting for an answer, she took his right hand in her own and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. Together, they dragged the blade across the pig's throat, from behind one ear up to the other. The blood pours out and lands with a crash on his legs and feet like the waterfall Patrick saw in the Hunger Games two years ago. He stands, stunned, as the pig bleeds a little more, grunts and dies, all in the space of a few seconds. An older boy and girl, maybe thirteen and fourteen, step forward and grab the animal and drag it to the butchering rooms. 

When the other children and the animal are gone, the girl drops to her knees in front of him. She takes his cheeks in her bloody hands. They're so slick. "Do you understand now?" She asks. 

A part of him, the small panicking part that feels even younger than he actually is, wants to ask but the rest of him doesn't need to. Patrick's watched the games every year just like everyone else, seen other kids from his own district and eleven others fight and die with the rest of Panem but he's never killed anything himself. Before that day he never got blood on his hands and felt it on his skin. It's hot. It's so hot and thick in a way he wasn't expecting and that was just an animal, pork that would be eaten, that had a _reason_ to die. The people on the screens? They don’t have reasons like the pig did. He's twelve, and his mom says that's little but there's pig blood on his feet and he saw boy's head explode into a fountain of blood on his TV during the last Hunger Games and he's not so little that he can't make the connection. 

Tears fill his eyes and he nods. In response, the girl glances around checking to make sure that the Peacekeepers are all watching the works in progress of butchers and slaughterers with knives in their hands, assistants using rope to restrain animals that could panic at any moment and try to run. It's just another busy day; who would pay attention to a veteran comforting a newbie on his first shift? 

So no one sees it when she gives him a gives him a sad smile then streaks his forehead with thick smears of blood, a line then a circle, the number ten. "Welcome to the District 10 Gore Corps, kid." She whispers straight into his ear. "We take care of our own as best we can and the ones we lose to the games? They don't go blind to the slaughter like the rest of the animals. We all go forward with our wide eyes open. Now, let's get you to work."

That was then. Patrick goes back to that day a lot but the Reaping is today. All of Panem is off school and work so Patrick is sitting alone outside on the roof of his family's house, waiting for the klaxon to call the masses to be culled and thinking about how after this there won't be any more Reapings for him, just a few more months in the Gore Corps before he's finally done. Once he turns nineteen he gets to join the adults with the herds, or milking the cows or raising the goats or breeding the pigs or the sheering of sheep to send the raw wool to the textile district, or maybe work in one other stores in the town center. Anything. Patrick is ready to do anything to get him out of the blood. 

Now that he's eighteen, Patrick's worked pretty much every position in the Gore Corps by now. He started where all the twelve year olds do, sweeping, mopping and soaking up blood with rags. He's tied up animals that were on the verge of panic and helped drag carcasses across the floors. He's crooned to unsuspecting livestock, soft humming tuneless songs to get them inside from the stock yards and thrown bones and horns across the waste chambers and into the small holes which opened into the disposal grinders. He's been a stunner with the hammer, which was…miserable, beating animals over the head, worse than slaughtering them because at least that was quick, ear to ear and they were down. He had a fairly steady hand and was a pretty quick study and a knife didn’t need the kind of muscle a hammer did. Both last to jobs kept the Peacekeepers staring at him as if he were going to blow up the entire nation of Panem. Anything involving weapons got you Peacekeeper attention inside the houses. 

Well, almost anything. Of all the jobs Patrick's cycled through just like every other child in his District in every other house just like his, he spent time as a butcher and the Peacekeepers assigned to the cold rooms where meat was cleaned, cut, and wrapped never took notice like they should. Patrick spent more time in that rotation than most actually, starting at fifteen and staying a year and a half year where most only stayed three months, six at the outside.

For him, the refrigerated rooms and the work they did there was better than any other in the Gore Corps. Everything was already dead by the time it came to the butchers block. No pain, no suffering, no sounds of dying animals. It was clean cold work. Emphasis on the cold. Every exhale came out as a puff of fog and as a smug teenager it had been a source of a lot of pride on Patrick's part that he had gotten used to that level of chill so fast, even with the coats provided – coats which were as old as his grandparents, made mostly of patches and worn very thin a dozen places. Andy used to tease him over their shared lunches that he had frozen blood to be able to stand it. 

Peacekeepers assigned to working the butchery rooms hate it with a passion. For the Peacekeepers, the butchery was a scut duty assigned to newbies and those being punished for minor offenses by their superiors. They never stayed on the duty long enough to learn the routine like the other stations and did everything they could to get around it or rush through the day. The Capitol's soldiers would bitch and complain to themselves and pay more attention to keeping themselves warm and make sure no one pulled anything funny with a carving knife to catch anything more specific. So anyone working that part of the Gore Corps came away with creative new Capitol style curses and more than a few snuck pieces of meat. During that rotation, Patrick's family had eaten better then than pretty much any time he could remember.

Beyond all that, for Patrick, working as a butcher was good for him because there was a rhythm to it, a beat, like the drums that played in the Hunger Games concerts. All music but the most basic Pro-Captiol hymns were forbidden in the Districts so the concerts were the only part of the games he's ever liked. The music had fascinated him and in particular the drums the Capitol musicians played behind the Tributes were something drums he'd always wanted to learn to play. So he had almost enjoyed the way there was a cadence to peeling skin from muscle to be sent to the tannery. Another beat for removing muscle from bone. Yet another tempo to severing pieces for prime cuts. He'd composed his own private music over the drums of his butcher tools clicking against skin and flesh and cold metal tables and no one, not even the Peacekeepers, ever noticed. 

Now, Patrick's job is to take the place the girl with the grim face and the bloody hands had filled when he first entered their town's slaughter house. He's the one standing in front of children on their first days in. He's wrapping their hands around knives and showing them how to kill livestock for food, blooding their foreheads and inducting them into the Gore Corps when the Peacekeepers. He doesn’t even go to school anymore. He breathes animal blood more than air and he just wants to be done, get out in to the sunshine even if he is eating gruel and rice, living in his mother's basement when there's pork and beef and mutton a building away. He wants to be done and when that klaxon goes off, all Patrick can think is yes, finally. One last time, he thinks as he climbs down to join his family as the set off on foot. 

The Reaping takes place in a place that was has been called the Wrigley Field for a literal eon. Sometimes, children digging in the dirt around there have found ancient coins with the faces of men who are unrecognizable and fragments of words like "erica" "tat" and "ited". No one knows why. Patrick doesn’t know if that means that there was once a field planted hear owned by a farmer named Wrigley or if it there if Wrigleys were a plant that went extinct back in the time before Panem took over whatever country ruled this land before or if it's something else, something he can only imagine in the games of make believe he and Andy used to play when they were still young enough to have recess in school.

Whatever it might have been, it's a gathering place now. The main forum sprawls over acres so far that it fills the line of sight. It has to be so huge to accommodate the people who travel from the other villages all over District 10 for the Reaping because theirs is a fairly large district, geographically. The Capitol sends out freight trains to gather everyone. The Peacekeepers herd the locals from the outlying communities into them like the animals they care for into the trains and bring them to the rubble strewn area by the great lake that all of Panem calls the Cago for the Reaping. Once off the trains, everyone comes to Wrigley Field, with its huge view screens to watch official Capitol messages and show the faces of the children, all corralled in the center of the arena and the stage at the center where the lots will be drawn.   
Andy says it's fitting, in those few conversations they've managed out of official earshot. The people of District 10 raise animals to be butchered. The kids of District 10 are plucked from their families be slaughtered just the same way; only the children who work in the slaughter houses aren’t as cruel as the ones in the Hunger Games. That’s the whole point of the District 10 Gore Corps and every child in District 10 knows it from the moment they spill first blood on their first day. They're just animals to the Capitol, pets to make jump through hoops. It's something the other Districts don’t always seem to understand. It unifies them, as a District. Makes them special. 

The children under twelve and adults nineteen and up clamber up into the stands. That alone can take hours. The feet of so many people on metal sounds like a storm while children hug their parents and try not to cry, try to be brave, say I love you as if they're not all so afraid. There are tiered bleachers for the masses to watch as the most important part of the forum fills. The empty roped off center, right for girls – who are being already being organized alphabetically by last name and age youngest to oldest; left for boys with the same military ruthless efficiency.

Patrick is eighteen and an S. He knows where he'll go so he takes his time with his family. Patrick hugs his brothers and father quickly but lets his mother hold him longer than he thought he would because this is the last one. The last time he'll have to go stand in those lines and hold his breath and pray. He lets her take off his hat and stroke his hair and tell him he'll be fine, they'll get through this and watch the games from the safety of their home then lovingly put his hat back on his head. Then he climbs into the pen – and Patrick has worked in the Gore Corps long enough to recognize a fucking pen when he sees one – to wait for the Peacekeepers to put them in the final order before Tributes are picked. 

He settles near the back with Joe Trohman, turning with his back against the cool early spring wind coming off the great lake so that they both stand shoulder to shoulder. They've been friends since they started school, worked a half a dozen different rotations together in the Gore Corps. With last names so close together, they've stood together before final organization every Reaping, pretending the proximity was a comforting.

"How's it going, Joe?" Patrick asks, smiling at him as best he can. "I haven’t seen you around."

"Ugh, Gore Corps' got me pickling things," Joe groans. "Intestines and stomachs and like… pig ears. Who the hell in the Capitol is going to eat pickled pig ears?"

Patrick snorts. "And we're the hicks."

"Right?" Joe wrinkles his nose.

"So how's Marie?"

Joe grins. They've been together since they were old enough to realize that boys and girls aren't the same. They're disgustingly cute together and have the added bonus of Marie being a year older. She made it through her last Reaping the year before and she's learning to take over the small brewery her father runs. Her name lights up Joe enough that for half a second, Patrick can forget what they're waiting for. "We're getting married. You know, after Fall Equinox. Everyone knows summer's in the Cago's hell so, first once harvest gets rolling and there's enough food for a decent wedding dinner, we're doing it."

Patrick can't help but smile back. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I asked her a couple weeks ago."

"Damn."

Joe just grins. "I just," he swallows hard. "I just gotta get through this. You know? We both just have to get through this." He reaches out and squeezes Patrick shoulder. 

Joe's just got himself and his mom so he hasn't taken any tesserae, yearly allotments of food or other supplies in exchange for another entry into the raffle for the Hunger Games. Patrick's family hasn't done so great the last couple year so he's got a few, and they've each got their name in for every year since they were twelve and it's just, too much, to think about. Patrick would be fine if he didn't have to think about it and most of the time he doesn't. 

Now though, as the Peacekeepers with the lists approach, he doesn’t have a choice. He nods at Joe and makes that smile stick. "We will. Maybe we'll get approval for some music at your wedding."

"Wouldn't that be something?" Joe laughs as the Peacekeepers approach, data pads in hand.

"Stumph, Patrick," the Peacekeeper calls out and Patrick lifts a hand. He's seen a couple kids, younger ones without parents or older parents try to run. Peacekeepers have pictures on their fancy tech. They know what everyone on the roster looks like. It's easier just to fall in line, let yourself be corralled, sedate but with eyes wide open. That’s the District 10 Gore Corps way. 

The same hundred-and-twenty or so young men as always from all over the district file into their places to separate him from Joe. These boys are there between them every year, some from the Cago, some from the communities in the outlying areas within a day's journey of the great lake, others from villages too far south or west to walk too, and some from so far east that they live right up against the boarder of District 12 and must travel a full day to reach a train station at all. Patrick and Joe never talk to them. No point really. Patrick doesn’t pay much attention to the rest of the line that comes after him until the last Z is called because that's it. The end of his last line up of his last Reaping. It feels like there should be something bigger to it but there isn't. 

Once the organizing is done, a quiet settles over the group. The Capitol anthem plays and Patrick's skin prickles. He has no great love for the Capitol but oh, the music. He loves the music. He sings along under his breath, tries to find the different instruments in the recording they broadcast and wishes he knew what they were called because it soothes him, takes his mind away from what's going to happen. 

However, much to his surprise, and the surprise of everyone on Wrigley Field, the old escort – a man named Glavius Sanderson who has been the escort for District 10 since before Patrick's parents were born – doesn’t emerge in whatever fabulous outfit he was debuting. This year, instead, a slim woman with straight red hair, shades darker than Patrick's almost the color of raw meat, possibly to honor the District, emerges from the Justice Building behind the stage. She has the same heavy make-up on her face that all Capitol women seem to favor but she smiles at them bright and cheerful and that smile is mirrored a hundred times over on the huge view screens. 

"Hello everyone," she says in a warm voice. Her smile is genuine. On any other day, for any other reason it would be infectious, despite the hideous blue lipstick. "Welcome to the Reaping of the 112th Annual Hunger Games. I know I'm a new face to all of you but the masterful Glavius Sanderson has retired." She presses a ringed hand to her chest. "My name is Ashlee Simpson and I am District 10's new escort." She clasps her hands together and bows her head, just a little. "It's an honor to be taking this exciting journey with you all and I'll do everything I can to live up to his legacy. Now, let's get started shall we?"

Whispers of conversation ripple through the conversation. It's been so long since there was any kind of change in the games that it's like setting off a miniature bomb. But the Peacekeepers are shifting with their weapons even as the containers with boys and girls lots are brought to Ashlee on stage. That goes a long way to shut everyone up.

"I was raised that few things are more important than good manners so, ladies first," Ashlee says with a nervous smile. She's never done this before. On the view screen, Patrick likes to imagine that he can actually see her hands shaking as her hand dips into the girls' box and comes out with a slip of paper. She opens it clears her throat twice and calls out, clearly, only the slightest tremor in her voice, "The female Tribute of District 10 this year will be Bebe Rexha." 

A woman in the bleachers screams, like she's been stabbed, been gutted, been mortally wounded and is holding her intestines in her hands. She shouldn’t be audible, the stadium at Wrigley Field is so tremendous, designed to hold the literal millions yet she screams so loud and so long that it stops sounding like something that came from a human throat anymore. Ashlee closes her eyes against the sound as do so many of the other people at the field. Patrick knows noises like that. They all do. Except for Ashlee Simpson, the new escort. She's being hit with the sound of a mother's grief for the first time, learning that there's more to the Hunger Games than good sport and costumes and a concert.

There is a pause as a Bebe, a girl who cannot be older than thirteen, makes her way through the throng of girls towards the stage on unsteady feet. She trips once and three girls a little older than Bebe, maybe fifteen help her to her feet then back away quickly, as if being a Tribute is contagious. Peacekeepers are already climbing into the stands to find the Rexhas and the rest of Bebe's people to say their goodbyes in the Justice Building. 

Now Ashlee has moved on to the next box. "Now for our handsome and distinguished young gentlemen," she says, a bit more slowly now but the shaking is gone from her voice now as her hand disappears into the large box full of names. The entire left side of the floor of the stadium their breath as she pulls out her little piece of paper. 

She opens it and nods once, like she was expecting what was inside, though there's no way she possibly could have. "The male Tribute for District 10 this year will be," she takes a deep breath and then lets out, like she's the Tribute, like this is about her, "Patrick Stumph."

Just like that, all the air rushes out of Patrick's world.

~*~*~


	2. Drivin' that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard gets on the Tribute Train as soon as it arrives in District 10 and he doesnt get off again until it arrives in the Capitol. That's the agreement he has with the other Victors and one of the few liberties he takes as the winner of the Fourth Quarter Quell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the most desperate of all canon whores and my story for Gerard comes from this tweet Gerard made [a million eons ago](https://twitter.com/gerardway/status/282361087553310720) that he would volunteer for Mikey. So there he is. Not my choice, Gerard said he would.

Gerard Way sits with his boots propped up on the big squishy seats of the train that will take him and the new pair of Tributes to the Capitol. He always puts his boots on Capitol furniture if he knows Glavius Sanderson is going to see it. It's a principle thing.

Since he won his games, Gerard's taken to going on long walks out in the cow fields, especially right after it rains so he has cow patties, like, permanently encrusted in his boots. It pisses Sanderson off to the point of having a stroke. Gerard secretly hopes that one day? It will actually give the old goat one. A stroke that is. He deserves it, the pretentious fuck. 

Gerard makes a point of getting on the train early. He hates the Hunger Games, loathes them. Waking up screaming in his bed at night over what he did to win his year is a regular occurrence but since there are three other Mentors in District 10, he earned the right not to have to sit through the Reaping anymore. Glenn sits on stage during the Reaping, representing the Victors of District 10, smile plastered on like it's all a good show because he and Gerard have a deal. He's twenty years older but he's puts on the public show at the Reaping for Gerard, bless the man, in exchange for Gerard doing the one on one with the Tributes on the train. 

So Gerard may put on a good show in the Capitol but out here in his home District, he's earned the right to board the train hours before the escort and the Peacekeepers and the new tributes, enjoy the comfy furniture and collect himself. By killing and surviving twenty three people who could and probably should have killed him he gained a home in the Victor's village. He gets paid more per month than anyone could use in a year. Most amazingly, he is permitted a music player full of Capitol produced music that is mostly entertainment based and only has trace amounts of propaganda.

He is also free to pursue his talent, and all Victors are supposed to have talent, of art and he's serious about it too. So, while the rest of Panem has their children plucked from their arms, Gerard Way sits with a charcoal in his hand and a pencil behind his ear. With his filthy boots on the furniture. Waiting for that asshole Glavius Sanderson to show up and destroy his relative peace. 

Only when the Tributes trip onto the train – a young man with sideburns, a hat pulled low over his head who is thankfully in his very late teens and a girl with a dark hair and a beautiful face who is heartbreakingly young – there is no Glavius Sanderson. Instead they're accompanied by a twenty-something woman Gerard doesn’t recognize. She's pretty enough, in the Capitol way of weird make-up and dyed hair but she looks tired. No, not tired, strained is probably a better word. She under her carefully trained coolness she looks nervous as well. 

He tilts his head and looks her up and down. "Hey. Where's Sanderson? I was looking forward to telling the old prick where he could shove it this year. Here's a hint – the sun doesn't shin there." He gives the older boy and the little girl a bright smile. "Hi."He waves the hand holding the charcoal. "I'm Gerard. I'll be one of your mentors. There's three others but they're a few decades older and they're less hands on. They're much better at the networking element when it comes to getting you guys sponsors? So I'll be helping you adjust and they'll be making sure you aren’t empty handed in the Arena."

The girl looks ready to cry. She looks at the ceiling and blinks a few times, a classic little kid move for not crying in fact. He used to use it all the time when he was little. The boy scrubs his face then drops his hands. He looks wary as he studies Gerard's casual posture on the couch. "I remember your game." 

That, really, says it all doesn’t it? Gerard tries to hold his smile because this kid is his Tribute. Gerard's charged with his care and he takes that part seriously, even if he hasn’t had one live since he started as a Mentor. Not one. Even so his job is to try save at least one of their lives and he wants to do that if he can. So he says lightly, "Oh, really?"

"The last Quarter Quell right? I was six." 

Now he's staring at Gerard's mouth, apprehension and a small wave of fear rippling over his features. Everyone who saw Gerard's games does that when they meet him for the first time. Well almost everyone. Frank had stared straight into his eyes but that's Frank. Frank has always been something else, has never fallen into the same categories as everyone else. Frank is special. His. 

"That was you, though? With the…" the boy trails off, bringing a hand to his lips. 

No one ever talks about what happened to him, to his mind during his game after his ally Lyn-Z's first fatal injury changed him. People refer to it, hint, stare and whisper but no one _says_ anything. All these years later, Gerard can't tell whether he likes that or hates it. For now, he just shrugs again. "Yeah."

The boy shudders, just a little. He tries not to. Gerard can see how hard he's trying not to shudder and appreciates the attempt. Gerard gets it. He lost it a little there. It happens to the best of them. The Hunger Games do that. You push anyone to an extreme, especial someone who is still essentially a child, and you cant be shocked when extreme things happen. He can't blame the kid. Not even a little. 

So he laughs it off, makes it a joke. "Don't worry, I don't attack lately. And if I did, it'll only be in your defense. I'm on your side, 100%." Then he turns and looks at the girl Tribute. He takes his feet off the furniture and smiles. She only has a few weeks to live most likely, just like so many Tributes he's mentored and he tires, so hard, to take care of them when they let him. He gives her the gentlest smile he can. "Hello beautiful. What's your name? How old are you?"

"Bebe," she sniffles. "I'm thirteen." And it’s a young thirteen, he can tell. She's probably still mopping blood off the floor, maybe learning hogties for more efficient slaughter methods. He wants to wrap her up in cotton and protect her from this but he knows he can't. This is the best he can do.

"Come sit by me," he says, patting the couch. "It's a big train and there's no reason you should be alone." It's a sign of how desperately scared she is that she clambers up beside him and presses into his side without question. He drapes his arm around her shoulders and gives her a gentle squeeze. She relaxes immediately and that earns him a long look from the boy. Something in his expression softens, just a little. Gerard did something right there and that’s good because the boy's older. Late teens, probably something Gerard can work with in a way that might actually be able to save. For Bebe, he's going to have to give realistic advice but the best survival options for her are going to involve "hide, run, gather food and try and outlast them by staying out of sight." The other things he'll have to tell her, they're going to scare her even more.

But the new woman cuts in before he can talk to the boy. She takes a deep breath and holds out a hand to him, very official and puffed up, Capitol born, bred and trained all the way through. "Victor Gerard? I'm Ashlee Simpson. I'm the new escort for your District. I'm supposed to get these two socially ready for the games – the interviews and the concert, the prep team, all that."

"Yes, all that. Well Ashlee, mind if I call you Ash? No? Great. Ash, why don't you get us some food and something to drink, with a kick for tiger over here and sweet and bubbly for the princess and you can tell them about the specifics over dinner? Good? Great."

Ashlee stares at him. Then she actually does as he tells her to and holy shit. She really is new. He laughs and pats the sofa on the far side of Bebe. "Come on, tiger, have a seat. You haven’t told me your name, yet." He should already know it but he wasn't paying attention.

"Patrick."

"Patrick. How old are you?"

"I'm eighteen." He sighs and settles back into the sofa, tilting his head back. "I thought- never mind."

Gerard knows what he thought. That he was safe. That he was done. That he was pretty much ready to be an adult. That he was a few months away from being done with his tour on the Gore Corps and that his real life could start. "At least you've got your eyes wide open, Patrick. Trust me. I've been doing this more than ten years. Most Tributes from other Districts get to the Capitol and training and don't have any idea what it's really like. Not even when they're standing in the Arena for the first time." 

He looks down at about Bebe who is pressed against his side, her face buried in his shirt. Her eyes are barely open, she's trying but half his job this year, at least half maybe more, is going to be getting this girl there. That's the Gore Corps way and he has never let one of his kids go into the Arena without knowing the reality of their odds and options, what the best way to live will be versus the quickest and cleanest way to die. His job is to find that for Patrick and Bebe if it’s the last thing he does before the countdown. 

Ashlee returns and clears her throat. "Dinner is in the dining car. If you would all follow me please." Gerard hops off the couch and follows her through the slightly shaking train cars. A pair of tongueless avox attendants are tending to the miniature feast and he can practically feel the shock when Patrick and Bebe it all laid out. Bebe leaves his side and runs to the table, throwing herself into a chair and digging in without care for manners or grace. She grabs a large chunk of roasted lamb with her small hands and bites into it, whimpering in pleasure. Juice dribbles down the corners of her lips tries to chew and smile at the same time. 

Ashlee rushes to her side, trying to show her how the proper etiquette for eating lamb is different from vegetables or beef or pork or shellfish. Her voice is firm but desperate to teach, to correct her gosh behavior. As so often happens at this stage? Gerard's suddenly not hungry. 

Patrick, on the other hand, is still standing beside him, staring at the table piled high with food. "This is where it goes?" He asks, his voice a quiet snarl loud enough for Gerard to hear but not loud enough to disturb Bebe's pleasure. Gerard turns his head at and sees that his fists are clenched and his cheeks are turning red and oh. This one's got a temper. He can tell. Patrick's jaw is tightening and he's even shaking a little, like he can barely move from how angry he is. "We spend our whole fucking lives breeding and raising and killing and butchering livestock so they can eat like this while we scrape by?"

Gerard squeezes his shoulder because what else can he do? "Welcome to the Capitol, kid. Enjoy what you can and forget what you can't. That's the best way to cope until your games start."

Patrick's whole body tightens for a moment then relaxes all at once. "Right. The games."

"Yeah." Gerard walks to his spot at the table and drops into a chair. 

He grabs a glass filled almost to the brim with thick red liquid he knows is wine and holds it out to Patrick. The temptation is still there, even though he hasn’t touched a drop in years. Gerard is proud of himself, absurdly fucking proud, that he can hold a full glass out for his Tribute and not drink it himself. 

Patrick takes it from him and drinks half of it in one series of large gulps. Then he settles in to eat himself. Gerard doesn’t say anything. He lets Ashlee fill the spaces between the conversation with her twittering over how to hold a fork or knife, or correct ways to use a napkin or push back from a table. He stays seated at the table long after the Tributes and their escort have settled into their sleeping cars, watching the avoxes clean up, glancing at him nervously. 

He doesn't know what act of rebellion they committed that cost them their tongues and relegated them to virtual slave status but it probably wasn't deserving of the punishment. He doesn't recognize either of them. Maybe they're like Ashlee, new to this gig as well. He gives them both a nod. "Anything we left you can eat or keep for yourselves," he says because the Capitol likes to starve anyone it can get away with.

They stare at him and Gerard knows it's because anyone desperate can dry or otherwise preserve pretty much everything left on that table. His grandmother was a Victor. He, his brother Mikey, their parents, and his grandparents all lived in her house in the Victor's Village and had enough to eat, counted themselves lucky on that score, but they all still served their tours in the Gore Corps. They lived in District 10 and learned the basic facts of how to survive where there was barely enough food to get by when the great lake made the air so cold you could barely breathe. 

"You've got my permission," he adds, when they both look at each other with expressions of silent anxiety. "Everyone else on the train's a subordinate, except Simpson and she's too new to know better."

The female avox bows so low her forehead practically scrapes the ground. Gerard's empty stomach turns over. He grabs a large chunk of dark whole grain bread of the table, a wedge of cheese and tucks both in his jacket pocket. Habit dictates that he stay fed. He'll eat it before he goes to sleep only because he knows he'll be sorry if he doesn't. Once they pull into the Capitol tomorrow the chaos will start. True for the Mentors the first day is relatively quiet but if he lets himself stop eating from nerves he'll get sick or run himself ragged. It's happened before.

At least, when he gets to the Capitol, in between all the glitzy insanity and mandatory tasks, he'll get to spend time with his grandma Elena without the rest of his family underfoot. She's the oldest of all the living Victors, not just of District 10 but of any District. She's also the best in the meager District 10 group at networking with the sponsors. Every year since she turned seventy-five, she has been given Presidential Dispensation to travel to the Capitol a week early to settle in due to her health. She teaches him a little more every year and this year, she has promised to show him more of how she manages to get the most supplies out of the least giving sponsors. 

Gerard settles on the couch as he thinks of her and is relieved to find that he's not angry at her Victor status anymore. Gerard never stopped loving her for a second. Unfortunately, there was awhile there, after his games ended, when Gerard was so furious that she dared to be a Tribute, and a victorious one, that he could barely breathe at times, barely think or move. It ate him, debilitated him, drove him to drink, to sleep for days at a time, to punch walls, to scream and scream until Mikey found him and wrapped his arms around him from behind, holding his arms at his sides until he stopped and went from screaming to sobbing. His anger had taken a long time to burn out because since Gerard's game was a Quarter Quell the whole thing had been, in a very small way, her fault.

Quarter Quells came once every twenty-five years and changed the rules of the Hunger Games, tweaked them to find new and creative ways to torture to the Districts. For the 4th Quarter Quell, the envelopes with the edicts planned for Quarter Quells declared for that the Tributes were to be culled from all the children of Reaping age related to living Victors. "To show that even the progeny of the victorious in the Districts should remember they are guilty," President Bowie had proclaimed from his position on a podium before the whole of the Capitol. The President was positively regal in his three-piece suit a slim cut silhouette in a tailored cream shirt, black waist coat and matching coal trousers with his white-blond hair slicked back from his razor sharp features. Every line of his person fit the persona of the Thin White Duke that his few political opponents had whispered behind his back until they met with an accident or changed their opinion, vocally and publicly. "Those who rose up against the Capitol and found some success claimed it was for their children. So those from the Districts who have found some success in the Capitol, will now give of their own children to the 4th Quarter Quell."

Gerard remembers the broadcast, sitting on the floor of his grandmother's house, Mikey beside him, clinging to each other, their mother sobbing while their father held her crying himself although far more quietly. They had clung to each other, staying close to each other and home when not at school or at work in the slaughter houses. Their Reaping had been a nightmare for his family. At the time there were only three living Victors for District 10 and their living child relatives were a total of seven including Gerard and Mikey, with two other boys and three girls. None of the other girls or boys were related and Wrigley Field was packed with families relieved that this year, it was sure not to be _their_ children that no one had cared that for four families, they were about to go through a literal hell all over again.

Glavius Sanderson had been so damn cheerful when he plucked Mikey's name out of the lot, grinning as he did so like it was a grand adventure. Mikey's name fell from his lips hard like hail on roof of their house then the words "No! Leave him alone! Take me!" had exploded out of Gerard's mouth before he knew what he was doing, and then he remembered the technical terms, the ones that were so common in the broadcasts from Districts 1, 2 and 4. "I mean, I volunteer. Please. I want to volunteer as Tribute," he declared before the Peacekeepers could take one step towards his little brother because, well, what the hell else could he do? 

For the love of all everything good left on Earth, it was Mikey. Mikey Way had always been his: his little brother, his to protect, his best friend despite the years and differences between them. On that spring day, Mikey had been fourteen years old and so thin that a strong breeze of the great lake could have knocked him over. He wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in the Arena and they all knew it. At least Gerard was seventeen, eighteen in only a few months. Elena couldn't get them much to work with but she saw to it that they both had survival and weapons training to some degree, better than most in their District. He had a better chance and even if he didn't Gerard couldn't let them take Mikey away to die, could he? 

As soon as he said it, Mikey ducked quickly past the other boys and into Gerard's arms. He caught Gerard around the neck like he used to when they were small and Gerard used to carry him up and down the stairs of their house pretending they were climbing into cities in the sky and down into civilizations underground. Mikey squeezed tight and whispered his name while Gerard held him and murmered "I love you, love you so much. So you have to be amazing for me, okay? Please, be amazing and stay you, just the way you are, Mikey Way," until the Peacekeepers had pried them apart with their bare hands and their guns. There were more good-byes, later, in the Justice Building. His mother and father had both tried to console him, told him that they believed in him, Elena had promised to protect him but Mikey had just wrapped his arms around his neck again and held on. Everything they had to say to each other was out there on Wrigley Field, left in the dirt of the boys pen, at least until Gerard came home again. 

Old Glavy Sanderson had loved that. It made a scene that had made for high drama. It gave Gerard's interview an extra splash of drama. The image of Mikey and Gerard clinging to each other in the Reaping pen in the center of Wrigley Field wore out the replay loops over the course of the games. To a certain degree, that moment had made the escort's career, gotten him bumped up to a Career District like 1 or 4. The miracle of Gerard surviving should've been a crowning accomplishment for Sanderson. Unfortunately, the way things played out at end of the 4th Quarter Quell had wrecked it again. The old bastard never let Gerard forget it either. 

So after everything, this was Gerard's reality now. He'd gotten used to it. He was man enough to admit to the time when after he clawed out of his Arena where Gerard almost slipped into the bottle and barely came out, where the allure of morphling almost pulled him down but he hadn't let it. He was fine now, not quite comfortable but accustomed. Adjusted even.

There are even some perks when the Hunger Games roll around. The food, the credits, the furniture that feels like it's made out of clouds and sunshine, getting to see the people he's managed to make friends with over the last dozen years. Then of course, there's the very best part of the whole affair. When Gerard is in the Capitol for the Hunger Games he gets to spend every night in bed with his favorite Victor from District 8. 

Flipping through his sketchbook, Gerard sets to work on his latest sketch of Frank. The piece is based purely on the memory of how he looked the last time Gerard saw him. The image is complete with latest set of tattoo and piercing mods he got the last time he was in the Capitol. Frank is different every time Gerard sees him – different ink designs in his skin, different jewelry in his ears and face and chest and genitals, different hair colors. Other things about Frank don't ever change. 

Frank's smile is always the same, making his eyes crinkle at the corners and his whole face brighten. His laugh never stops reminding Gerard of childhood and things that feel free to run across open spaces. When he wraps his arms around Gerard's neck and kisses him, his lips and mouth always tastes the same underneath, no matter what he's eaten. Being with Frank is always love, better than anything Gerard's ever hoped to find in his sad, strange life. 

Gerard gnaws on his piece of bread, and pulls the pencil from behind his ear where he placed it hours ago. He erases a stray hair where it hangs in front of Frank's eyebrows then stops. He'll adjust it more tomorrow. It can wait.

~*~*~


	3. It's better to look good than to feel good

Pete Wentz can't stop his fingers from tapping against the glass of his desk with barely contained energy as he waits for his prep team to call him in to meet his Tribute, Patrick Stumph. These are his fifth games but his first as a Stylist. For the last two days, he's been holed up in his office in the Remake Center, putting finishing touches on the elements of Patrick's presentation that he can, without Patrick actually being in front of him. Costuming, color palettes based on the video and pictures, preliminary personality reports from Ashlee have given him a starting point. 

The orchestrators and organizers of the Games designate Pete's job that of Stylist. It's very official and is one of the few constants in the shifting nature of the Hunger Games rotating cast of Tributes. Before President Bowie came to power, the profession was exactly that. Then came new laws the President enacted decades ago in regards to music, both in the Districts and the Capitol, and suddenly there was a revolution in the structure of the opening ceremonies of the Hunger Games. Now the Tribute Concert is as important as the Tribute Parade and the interviews. 

A Stylist is as responsible for preparing their Tribute to perform at the concert as they are for dressing them for the opening ceremonies and the interviews. Pete doesn’t think the title is quite fitting anymore, what with all the producing and the songwriting and fitting of temporary prosthetics to the mouths or in the throats of the many Tributes with little or no vocal talents. Trying to turn defenseless children into musicians and killing machines in one fell swoop is more than a little absurd.

Of course, a huge chunk of the reason that Pete is a Stylist is his keen appreciation and understanding of the absurd. His parents are normal Capitol citizens and so are his two siblings but Pete's personality and sensibilities are way off center and always have been. 

Oh, he stays quiet about it most of the time. That's because Pete's mother had told him how someone could become an avox before he started school. She told him, Hilary and Andrew all to be careful, always, even with their friends from before they could speak. 

His mom's still works as mid-level political official just like she has his whole life. She never accepts promotions, maintaining a spot at just the right level to keep the family comfortable without attracting attention. Dale Wentz devotion to her children was fierce and Pete doesn’t know exactly know what she's seen inside the Capitol's political arena but over the years, she's made it very clear that the consequences for outright rebellion were more than anyone was ready to pay. 

Quiet and careful, she always told them and their father agreed, nodding along whenever she said it. If you want to push back, be quiet and careful. She beat it into their skulls before they were old enough to read and all three of them breathed that ethos before going out into the Capitol themselves, even as kids.

In spite of this warning, growing up Pete couldn't really help weird. He had friends of course. He ran with the Fringers as a teenager; the pseudo rebels who started body mods early and preferred the darker colors and piercings to pastel skin dyes and wigs and metallic tattoos. They distanced themselves from their more cheerful peers and took jacker juice, the sensory skewing, hallucination inducing drugs made from wine mixed with drops of tracker-jacker venom, or morphling. They were brats trying to gently bucking against a system built to cushion them who thought they were above it all. 

Even in that group, out on the edge of what the Capitol allowed, he never fit. Although he had kept tattoos on his hands, up his arms and around on his chest from those couple years that he wouldn't let Brendon and Ryan remove, as much as they wanted to. The black ink in his skin reminded him that most people he knew vibrated on one frequency, he vibrated on another. 

Pete could pretend but that didn't change the reality that he would never feel truly right in his own head. This was a problem since as much as the Capitol loved variation in the physical appearances of its citizens, it didn't like it in their psychological state and Pete was absolutely off kilter in his own head. By now, Pete had accepted that strange for a Capitol citizen was his normal. At this point in his life, as an adult with a career and a full life ahead of him, Pete was mostly concerned with keeping the fact that his brain didn’t work like other citizens under wraps, just like his mother warned him. 

However, having abnormal as a baseline personality has helped Pete maintain a keen grasp of how utterly ridiculous life in the Capitol is. It's something he's been aware of since he was a small child that most of his peers don't get. He doesn't blame them for it. They're all products of the Capitol system just like the Tributes are products of their individual Districts. Pete just happened to be born with enough of a tilt to his world view that he could see the forest for the trees. So while Pete understands the absurd, there's part of him that is Capitol through and through and embraces it with open arms. Crazy is as crazy does after all. 

Then, of course, there's the music. The audio laws about music are strangling. All content is reviewed with a fine-toothed comb. Training is regulated by boards and censoring committees. Pete's family had to help him apply six times before he was permitted to own a bass and learn to play it. He was never very good at it but it came with the allowance to explore lyricism which he was good at, very good. When it comes to fashion Pete is self taught, self-inspired and motivated born from hours of doodling bored in school as a child but music? The music he had to go to others for because he loves it down to his bones and guts. 

In the end, after he finished school, Pete started training to become a Stylist. Fighting the system was impossible. The Capitol's grip was too strong and its tentacles reached too far and wound too tight. Pete chose the career as a Stylist because his one of his best talent is in using the power of the absurd to his advantage. Now that he's finally lead Stylist of a District, he's going to try and help give his one Tribute a few more tools to save himself.

Pete scribbles down a few more lyrics in the margins of a dinner outfit plan and wondered how other officials involved in the games, people outside his prep team – lovely and committed Brendon, diligent Spencer, and dramatic Ryan who are in the salon trying so hard to prepare Patrick's body for the opening ceremony – like the escort or the viewers, could miss that music and image were almost as much weapons as the knives, bows, and axes that are in the Arena. Even though he hates watching innocent kids die on TV, the idea that his skills with fashion and music could help his designee live is something that's inspired Pete to chase this path since he was old enough to know it was an option.

There was the requisite basic training and then he spent five years bouncing from District to District as an apprentice member of various prep teams. He studied under some talented and terrible Stylists and while he learned some about technique, mostly it was a crash course in the politics of the games. Now, finally, he was an independent Stylist and had a Tribute of his own. 

Since he found out that he would be the Stylist for District 10 five months ago he started planning and now he thinks most of it is awful. He has books filled with sheets of designs and lines of lyrical attempts. He has hundred songs that could be used for the concert in the opening games but there's no way to know. No way to fine tune anything – not the music, the presentation, none of it, unless Pete can meet him. 

Only Pete can't meet him until Brendon, Ryan and Spencer call to say Patrick's ready which leaves him trying to burn off nervous energy with pen and paper. It's his only option because otherwise Pete would start pacing or running around like the insane person he actually is which would his freshly applied blue eyeliner and pale green lip tinting. He's not a huge fan of Capitol color schemes, dramatic plastic surgeries and skin dying, even now dislikes the tattoos he has. Although he's a huge fan of the dramatic hair choices available. He loves the hair because that's as changeable as Pete's mood and just as bright. He has red streaks in his black hair at the moment. One the other elements he plays along in subtle ways because Stylists are supposed to look a certain way and he doesn't want to draw attention to anything but his Tribute. 

Then the communicator built into his desk clicks and Brendon's excited voice fills the room. "Pete?"

"Bren, hey!"

"He's ready. Come on down. We're going to head up to the studio and start playing with tonal tracks. Join us when you've got a read on him."

Pete runs to the elevator because he needs to burn the energy and slams the button for the salon floor. As the glass tube shoots downwards he takes a deep breath because this is the first time his entrance has ever really mattered. He refuses to flit into the room like some sort of demented bird. The poor guy probably got enough of that from Brendon's poking and Ryan's staring. Not from Spencer though. Spencer was all about precision and quiet studying, thank heavens.

When the elevator doors slide open, and there he is. Patrick sits on one of the tables, legs swinging, robe tied tight around his chest, a pair of glasses clutched in his hands and a cap sitting defiantly on his head. He can't need the glasses anymore. The prep team will have fixed his vision as part of his preparation but Pete finds it charming that he's hanging onto them.

Mostly, it's the hat that grabs Pete's attention. It's in congruous to the cool clean lines of the room and the fall of the robe. The cap is knit probably with a small brim. It is most likely locally made in from the wool sheered right off the sheep in District 10. Patrick's family probably can't afford a lot fabrics imported from the textile factories. Pete likes it immediately. 

Since Pete's the impulsive sort so he'll go ahead and say that he likes Patrick immediately too. Patrick looks far too small to be the eighteen his file declares him to be. That makes him one of the oldest Tributes in the games this year but he is also less than five and a half feet tall, shorter even than Pete which is saying a lot. That won't serve him well in the Arena and he probably knows it. 

Even with such an obvious handicap, Patrick's got something to him. His face maybe? His eyes? Pete is staring at him, blatantly, rudely, trying to find what it is exactly and Patrick is staring right back, defiant jut to his chin just asking Pete to say something, anything, that would give him a reason to lash out. Pete takes a small breath in through his mouth and can almost taste Patrick's anger. It's so amazing makes Pete want to laugh. 

Not because he thinks it's funny, because it's not. Patrick has energy and spark, enough that if Pete pushes the right buttons and helps his Mentor find the right techniques they could stoke into a full fledge fire because this one? He's not dead yet, damnit. Patrick Stumph isn't ready to roll over and let the Capitol and its twenty-three other Tributes take him down and that kind of spirit is exactly the sort of thing Pete can work with. 

Pete's never experienced the kind of raw fury Patrick's dealing with. He's never had anyone say "You, your life is officially our plaything," but he can imagine. He knows anger and frustration enough to work with it. He knows it enough that when he holds out his hand to Patrick, he is confident that he can do something to help this young man get the sponsors he will need to make it in the Arena.

"Hello, Patrick. I'm Pete. I'll be your Stylist."

Patrick takes his hand, slow and wary, but shakes it. He doesn’t stay anything, just keeps staring at him. After a moment, he releases Pete's hand, and his jaw ticks. Well, that's interesting, Pete thinks and can't help but smile because wow, angry Tribute is so very angry. He shouldn’t be so excited but he is. It's just…it's like spending his whole life in the dark with a flashlight surrounded by people who couldn’t see the beam of light. Now, suddenly, he's got someone else with a flashlight right in front of him. If he weren't about to be thrown into a battle to the death, it'd be downright wonderful.

"You're angry," he observes.

Patrick snorts. "Wow. You're really smart. They teach you those observation skills at Capitol school?"

Pete laughs. He can't help it. That sort of honesty and sarcasm, it just doesn’t happen often in the Capitol. He sees it from a distance in some of the Victors but this will be the first year he's permitted to talk to them in any real way. 

Pete turns and hops up to sit beside Patrick on the table and gives Patrick's shoulder a soft bump with his own. "I'm on your side you know," Pete says, tilting his head so that he could face Patrick as he spoke "I don’t know what you're thinking, beyond the anger and the fear. I can't imagine it but I know you must think that all of us Capitol people are nothing but bloodthirsty animals but some of us aren't."

It's Patrick's turn to laugh. His is sharp likes glass shattered all over a clean stone floor. "I'm sorry but you're a Capitol citizen. Did you not watch the 111th Hunger Games?" Patrick asks, "Or the 110th or the 109th?"

"Of course why-"

"I may have had to watch from a crappy television in my mother's living room in District 10, but I was forced to watch them just like everyone else. I know people took bets; I saw the crowds cheering in the streets as the procession went through the city; the packed stands at the interviews. In District 10 you learn all about blood and how animals behave around it. That's not it. Animals don't get to know their food then make it slaughter itself for their amusement. That's not how animals behave, not even the bloodthirsty ones. This is what monsters do, Pete." 

He looks down at his glasses and something crosses his face, making his jaw tick. Pete doesn’t know what it is that just crossed Patrick's face exactly but it's sad and it's deep and old for a man so young. The sight makes Pete's chest ache. Also, Pete likes really the way Patrick says his name, the way it vibrates in Patrick's chest and comes out his mouth clear and crisp. That is probably going to be a problem but he doesn't let himself think about that. 

Instead he just reaches out and puts his hand on over Patrick's wrist. It's a comforting gesture, not making him drop his now unnecessary glasses, just a warm human touch because five years of watching the Stylists he apprenticed under with other Tributes has shown him that Tributes are starved contact their last few weeks of life. He doesn't want that for his Tribute. For Patrick. 

"Okay, so, yes." He gives his wrist a squeeze and Patrick looks up, stunned green eyes meeting Pete's. "Everything you've just said is true about some citizens. Most of them, actually. They don't get that life is valuable even if it's not the life of a Capitol citizen. They can't see that what they're doing is monstrous. If you figure out a way to make this stop? Tell me."

Silence hangs between them, heavy and thick because this is the nation they live in. Both of them are citizens of Panem. The Hunger Games are happening, right now, has been happening for over a hundred years. Patrick is the District 10 Tribute. That's all there is to it.

Pete squeezes his wrist again. "So, I'm here for you. My job, my career, hell, my whole life is built around giving you all the tools I can to help get you out of the Arena alive. They're not the same tools your Mentors and the Training Center are going to give have for you, but they're going to help you all the same."

That earns him a smile, a real one. "Your job is make-up and fancy shoes." Patrick retorts, his smile widening just a tiny bit more and it makes a completely different set of lights come on in his eyes. No, it's not even light. It's freaking sparkle. 

Pete gapes at him because fuck. Fuck, he is in so much trouble. because even as he's thinking of what shade of blue-green-teal Pete's going to dye the shirt for his suit? He's also thinking about how freaking beautiful Patrick's eyes are and how he wouldn't mind spending hours or days or months or years looking at them the way they are, right now, all lit up with amusement. This is a problem, one he puts in a file in his brain labeled DO NOT FUCKING OPEN YOU FUCKING MORON and moves right along with the conversation.

Pete grins back, as if his brain hadn't just stuttered, skipped and reset. "Hey, I can design a mean suit and a killer dress as well. But it's more than the clothes and all the glitter and shine. The Hunger Games are image driven. You're not just a pawn to them, Patrick, you're also a pretty package to look at. Is it fucked up? Yes but-"

Patrick cuts him off, looking around, a frown curving his full mouth down sharply. "I'm sorry but, should we really be doing this here?"

"Talking about how this is fucked up? I'm pretty sure we established that already with the monster thing. The image driven part of the Hunger Games is a no brainer." Pete stops then sees Patrick's expression. His eyebrows shoot up into his bangs as he realizes what he means. "Oh, no, don't worry about that being overheard. Any of it really. The salons are actually one of the only places in the Capitol that aren’t wired because the Tributes curse and rage while they're being plucked and waxed and lasered and having other really unpleasant physical things enacted on their person. A few years running they had some Tributes get so angry over waxing they tore wiring out of the wall. Nothing much important ever usually gets said down here anyway so after the eighth or so time, they just gave up and stopped wiring it."

"Huh."

"I know." He gives Patrick a long nod. "Anyway, the point is, you're a package. My job is to make you more than a package. If your Mentors told you anything, it's that I'm one of your biggest assets. My whole purpose is to make you the most valuable commodity on the market, the one all the sponsors want to throw their money behind."

"And you do that by making me, what, pretty?"

"Please." Pete dismisses this with a wave of his hand. He still has black nail polish on from the last time he got bored. "Don't they have mirrors in District 10? You're not some starving coal miner from 12 are you? You have to know that _are_ pretty. You've got amazing eyes, lips that could probably get you into serious trouble in certain parts of the city and great bone structure."

"Wait, why would my mouth get me in trouble?"

"Oh you know, there're parts of the city where the rich and the powerful would pay for access to a mouth like yours." Pete says and Patrick keeps staring. He keeps on staring, dead silent because he has no damn idea what Pete is talking about so…okay. That's interesting. Great. Good to know and goes straight into the handy DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH YOU FUCKING MORON file as well.

Pete waves his hand again. This time it's more to clear his own head than to get Patrick's attention. "Forget it. Forget I said anything at all. Remember everything from here on, Patrick. You are pretty, handsome, whatever adverb you choose to throw around the bottom line is that you're an attractive human being with a nice face and some muscle under the baby fat."

Patrick glowers at him, jaw tightening again. "It's not baby fat."

"Yes it is. You are eighteen years old, you're not done growing so it's still technically baby fat. It's cute. It works on you. Stop arguing with me."

This makes Patrick smile again, the real one that gives his eyes that shine. "That's not going to happen."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that. I'm going to keep going like you didn’t just cut me off if that's alright with you?" Pete asks and Patrick lifts an eyebrow as if to say 'do go on'. The expression manages to be viciously acerbic without uttering a single word. Pete hopes that the interviews can pull this out of him because it's magnificent. "As I was saying. The look you've got, right here, with your little hat and the threadbare jeans and _I've been wearing the same five shirts for the last two years_ District 10 look you were modeling when you arrived was hot in a rugged way that'd get you a girlfriend if you were back home but it needs work."

"Boyfriend," Patrick corrects.

People in the capitol don't give a shit about gender in regards to relationships. Hell, Pete has a few friends who have switched their sexes more than twice that he can remember. He's gone one who settled in the middle before zee turned thirty. Maybe it's different out in the Districts. In the Capitol the type of person you have sex with doesn’t really matter. Boys, girls, inters – it's all an afterthought to the sex itself which is hopefully often and as dirty as possible, especially if said sex can get you something or somewhere you want to be. 

So, he's not sure why Patrick is telling him this. Unless there is an actual boyfriend in which case Pete really does need to know. If there is some poor sad boy back in District 10 waiting for Patrick, hoping he'll come back alive, loving him and waiting with baited breath? That's something that Patrick is going to have to call a team meeting about because that is an angle the entire District 10 team could work or cover to Patrick's favor. He tries to take deep breath and gives Patrick what he hopes is a winning smile. "Sorry, can you elaborate on that for me?"

"You said my looks could get me a girlfriend and I corrected you and said, boyfriend. I don't have one, I'm just… I don't like girls. Well, I like girls. I have friends in the stock yards and the slaughter houses and at school that are girls but I'm not interested that way." Patrick gives a little shrug. "It doesn't matter but I had this thought, on the train. I thought that if I only have a few days left to live, then I might as well live them honestly."

Pete stares at him. This is just not fair. Not at all. How dare he be all noble and forthright on top of everything else? It's bullshit it is what it is. It’s also perfect and he can work with it like a sculptor with clay, especially once he gets a chance to talk to Ashlee and the Mentors. For the moment though, there are fresher fish to fry. 

"Okay. That's fair. I won't argue with that choice or ask you to lie at any point. However, I am going to say that what we've got right now might be all right for finding you a hot hunk of manlove back in the cow pastures but its not enough for the Hunger Games. You need something else. Something more."

The eyebrow of doubt and distain is back up. "You're going to tell me what that is eventually right? I'm going to get horribly murdered by the other Tributes before you reveal your master plan, aren't I?"

"You've got a smart mouth. I really like that but yeah. I have to polish you up. That's the first thing, the easy thing really. Polish is almost formulaic. The second and far more important thing is that I have to find the music in you. That one takes more work but that's because it’s the most valuable element. "

He can hear Patrick's breath actually catch at that. Pete watches the way Patrick's eyes gleam, bright and so greedy for a long moment before he seems to catch himself and forces his expression back to neutral. The idea of having access to music excited him. It was impossible to miss.

"Do you sing?" Pete asks abruptly, sliding off the table and moving to stand in front of Patrick. He puts a finger under his chin and tips his head up, just a little, so that Patrick can't meet his eyes, even if he tries. It lets Pete look at the line of Patrick's throat, which is long and white and, something in Pete's gut is telling him, hiding something golden.

"How would I know?" Patrick asks the ceiling. He drops his glasses to the table and grips the table with both hands. "Music's mostly illegal in the Districts. So, no. Of course I don't."

"Right. Party line, the Panem audio laws. I know all about it. Still, everyone skirts outside the parameters. There are a few things that even the Peacekeepers let slide. Everyone's got something. Nursery rhymes, tunes to help you remember things at work. Hell, everyone is taught the Panem national anthem. I've been apprenticing for five years and every tribute I've seen from five different districts? Not one of them has had the song their mother sang them to sleep policed. So think of that song, close your eyes, count to three, and go."

Patrick does as he's told and out of his mouth pours a lullaby is old. Very old. It might be so old that it could be from before the Dark Days of the Districts' revolution or older still. It might be from before the founding of Panem or maybe before the droughts and fires and the rising of the seas and great wars the reshaped the world. It weaves a gentle story of silly bears and things called Ferris wheels and jelly beans, neither of which Pete has ever heard of. It also speaks of peacocks which have been hovering near extinction for centuries and are a species that most of the Districts shouldn’t even know exist. There is a single flock of them in the Capitol university's zoology center and the scientists there spend half their time keeping them and other species like them from dying out completely. 

"It's not what it seems in the land of dreams, don't worry your head just go to sleep. When you wake up, the world will come around." Patrick sings. 

His voice is soft but the acoustics in the salon are amazing and even if they weren’t, Pete has an ear for talent. It's one of his blessings to counter moods that spike sharply like the mountains around the Capitol and tastes that fit into the round holes of his home like the proverbial square peg. He can just…tell. From this little lullaby he can tell. 

It's impossible not to because Patrick's his voice reverberates through Pete's bones and piercing his lungs and heart like one of the weapons in the Arena. He literally can't breathe or do much of anything but watch his full mouth move and wait. Pete wonders if this is what falling in love feels like. If it is, it's beautiful but it fucking hurts.

Not only that? Patrick's fingers are drumming on the table in time to the song. No, that’s not right. He's not in time because it's not a rhythm. It's an accompaniment. It's like Patrick is playing actual music in his head and the tapping is the best he can manage in the physical world without any instrumental training that he might have been given in the Capitol. 

He stops, looking at Pete nervously but the drumming of his fingers continues. The tempo is faster, different rhythm, and his feet are moving as well, but not to the same beat. Pete is smiling, his huge horse smile that makes some people step back from. Patrick doesn't step back, he just looks confused. 

"What is it?"

"Your voice. God, Patrick, your voice is amazing. I know you probably don’t believe me because you've spent your whole life trying to not be heard but trust me, it is. It's good but it's not just that." Pete points to his hands. "Do you ever hear anything?" He makes another gesture more clearly this time, at the syncopated tapping of Patrick's fingertips. "Over that beat you're making. In your head."

Patrick's face explodes in an expression of panic for a moment before it goes blank again. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Look, I know what you've been taught but you aren’t in the Districts anymore. For the Hunger Games, the rules are reversed. Up is down, black is white and what should be wrong is right." Pete draws in a breath that is so deep it's audible. More than half of the best sponsored Tributes since the audio laws were enacted had more than talent, they had songwriting ability so he hopes to god that he's right here. "Patrick, you want to live honestly? You want to live at all? Tell me the truth. Can you. Hear music. In your head. Over the rhythm?"

"Yes," Patrick exhales, coming out as more of a breath sound than an actual word.

"Oh thank fuck." Pete exhales, sagging so hard he has to catch hold to the nearest solid object which just happens to be Patrick's knee. "I know it doesn't make sense to you right now," he says, not letting go, "but this could help make your pre-game score."

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t need to because Pete is dragging him out and up. He pulls him over towards a pair of couching and pulls out a data pad. He flips through its contents with a few touches while Patrick watches and does a few edits, throws in the dozens of measurements his prep team collected, then hits send. 

The outfit arrives moments later, appearing out of a nearly invisible portal built into the wall. Pete picks them up and waves them at Patrick until he gets the message and holds out his arms. Pete drops them into his arms with a wide grin. Patrick looks at them, skeptical. "What is this?"

"This is the sort of thing I want you in from now on, every moment of every day. It's going to be all dark colors, as much District 10 animal based products we can mange, leather jackets, wool slack and scarves, that sort of thing. The rest is mixed cotton and silks, durable and tough but soft to the touch, just like you." 

That just earns him another of those doubting eyebrow quirks. In response, Pete touches the soft skin of his cheekbone with the skin of his thumb, and his cheek with his palm, telling himself it's to prove his point. To his shock, Patrick leans into the contact, eyelids drifting down just a bit. Pete stares at the place where their skin is making contact and sighs. 

He brushes his fingers up towards Patrick's ear them back down before pulling away. "Oh Green Eyes, trust me. The blue silk under cherry red leather will break all their hearts. Now." He slaps the stack clothes and plucks the glasses from Patrick's fingers. He doesn’t need them anymore but Pete will hang onto them for him, give them back to him at the end of the game or send them home with his body to his family – either way, he'll take care of them. "Get dressed so we can get to the music. I know that’s what you really want anyway." 

Pete turns his back as Patrick does as he's told. He doesn't want to. He wants to watch, see if he's like the other District 10 Tributes have been in the past, lightly muscled from the honest work they do in the stock yards and slaughter houses every day, if his hair is that same strawberry blond all over. He takes both those impulses and tucks them away in his special file.

By some miracle, Pete resists. He waits out that urge until Patrick clears us though. It's worth it. When he turns around Patrick looks amazing. The blue shirt buttons down the front and Patrick has the good taste to leave the top one undone. The collar folds down and is hidden by the smooth rich lambskin leather dyed a cherry red that Pete chose because it evokes the thought of blood at the sight even as it complements the blue of the fabric and the cream of Patrick's complexion. The black trousers make Patrick's legs look far longer than they are. It's an outfit for a man, not a boy.

Overall, he looks like someone Pete wants to spin around, pin to the wall and do horribly filthy things to. If asked, Pete would probably start with licking all the places the clothes hide for a start and go on from there. So, that's good sign in terms of possible sponsors, right? Yeah, he's going to count it as a win even as he thrusts those thoughts in to the DON’T FUCKING TOUCH YOU FUCKING MORON file too.

Instead he just smiles at him. "Look at you Patrick," He says, pointing at a mirror. Patrick steps in front of it. He doesn't follow, just watches Patrick take in the sight of himself, then inhale sharply. It makes his smile grow even wider and he cant help but gloat, just a little. "I knew it, Green Eyes. I knew you'd be a heartstopper."

Patrick turns to look at Pete. His lips are twisted in a curious expression "I thought the term was showstopper."

"It is. But that's not what you are."

Patrick blushes bright pink. It goes all the way out to his ears. It makes him look even younger than he is. It's endearing and the crowd is going to love it. Pete certainly does, even if it’s accompanied by a 'yeah, right" shoulder shrug."

With all of the externals accomplished for the afternoon, he takes Patrick's hand. It seems like the right thing to do even though every ounce of common sense Pete has (and he'll admit, its less than most) is telling him not to. He leads his Tribute by the hand to the elevator and up to the studio assigned to District 10. 

When they step out, Patrick actually gasps, so loud that he throws his hand over his mouth and some tears actually fill his eyes. There are instruments everywhere. There are also sound booths, some mixing equipment, and autotuning devices. Beyond, on other parts of the floor, there are things that Patrick can't imagine.

Past where they stand now? There is an operating room complete with a surgical team stating at the ready. Pete is grateful they won't need to use that though it's not uncommon that tributes with no vocal talent get implanted with mouth and throat implants that correct their lack. Pete hates the fact that those rooms even exist.

Thankfully Patrick won't need that. All he needs is the studio and the instruments. The only thing they need to give him is a place to work with the music with which he is already in love.

Brendon and Ryan are standing before him, waiting. Spencer doesn't move from the mixing board. He's working. Ryan hangs back as Brendon bounces over to them, gushing at Patrick at how brave he is, how good he looks. He's telling Patrick how he's already pulling for him, praying for him to his home temple.

Of course, Brendon's a poly, a follower of one of the religions that popped up in the Capitol after the Dark Days, in particular one of the many polytheistic groups with alters in their homes and to varies deities all over the city. Brendon's home goddess was, of course, warm and friendly and focused around music so naturally he invoked her as soon as he could around Patrick.

Ryan's not that type. His make-up is by far the most dramatic in the room, long silver painted eyelashes contrast his green brows and thick gold eyeliner and silver eye shadow against blue dyed skin but his arms are folded over his chest. Ryan gives Pete a skeptical look then tilts his head towards Patrick. "How's the voice?"

"Best I've ever heard," Pete says honestly. "He he's got an ear for music as well. I think he'll actually be able to help with the creation of his songs."

"Bullshit."

"When have I ever lied to you, Ryan?"

There's a long pause where their entire sexual history stretches out between them in uncomfortable silence. Okay. So there were a few times. Or, you know, a few dozen times. But to be fair? Ryan spent a lot of his time lying about who else he was fucking too. Still, Pete is in charge so he caves first. "About music. When have I ever lied to you about music."

"Fair point." He turns and looks at Patrick with his full attention. "I've never worked with a Tribute who had a voice before. Should be interesting. Pete seems to think you can create to?"

Patrick rubs the back of his neck nervously. "I, um. I hear things sometimes? In my head?" His nervous hand moves from his neck to his ear, tugging on it. It's charming. "There are songs I haven't before, sometimes they're the same ones, ones I've had in my head for years and sometimes they're new. I don’t have any way to save them or anything but-"

"Oh goddess of the home, we can absolutely work with this. Come on." Brendon grabs Patrick by the wrist and drags him into the instrument room leaving Pete alone with Ryan and Spencer. 

Spencer hasn't gotten get up. He's still sitting at the mixing board with the original mix of the first recordings of Patrick's voice – sample recordings of him taken from the Reaping. He's just trying to find what tones match him best. Spencer is a big believer in getting a job done efficiently and effectively. 

Pete knows that’s his family influence. He and Ryan are the only two people, aside from Spencer's sisters and father of course, who know that his mother was originally from District 3. Her father was a Victor who was not only went out of his way to support the games but made a point to be an extremely vocal and effective supporter of Bowie as he rose to power. 

Spencer's grandfather died protecting the new candidate from an "accident" a Hunger Games event during the power shift. When Bowie came to power, he quietly moved his savior's wife and four children, all of Reaping age, to the Capitol. This of course, came with the condition that their surnames were changed and not make their connections known. After all, leaving a District to move to the Capitol? It simply wasn't done. _Ever_. 

It gave him the same sort of grounding that Pete himself had, the sort that was so sorely lacking in the Capitol. Only more so. Ginger Smith instilled it in Spencer and his twin sisters since birth much like Pete's mother and since Ryan practically lived with Spencer from age six, he had it as well. Pete had become friends with the pair when they were all Fringers together, making wordless music and tripping on jacker-juice. They were younger than he was and they followed him into Styling. When he was elevated to official Stylist this year, he took them with him because they helped him keep sight of the brutal reality of the games and the propaganda of the styling and the music when faced with the joy at creating that Brendon, a friend they hadn't met until their apprenticeships began, brought to the group. It wasn't Brendon's fault. He couldn't even see it and none of them could bear to show him. 

"So," Spencer asks not looking up. "What are we dealing with?"

"I don’t know, physically," Pete admits. "There's no way to know until he shows the Gamemakers what he can do but for what we need? He's the best there's ever been since the audio laws were enacted."

"Pete," Ryan sighs, dragging his hand through his hair. It's short and straight but it's a shade of dark blue that compliments the pale blue of his skin. "I know you think you're being honest okay, but you do have a habit of exaggerating things."

"What did I say the first time I heard Brendon sing?"

Ryan frowns. Spencer grins but doesn’t look up from the boards.

"I said 'That boy has a voice that makes me want to fuck him through the floor.'"

Ryan lets out a derisive little snort and tightens his arms across his chest, just a little bit more. "Which you did. Three times that afternoon if I'm not mistaken."

"It was four," Spencer laughs, hitting save and finally looking up. He spins in his chair to look at both of them and fully join the discussion. "First three were on the floor. The fourth was on your bed. Remember, Ry?"

"Shut up, Spencer." Ryan snaps.

"Shut up both of you. What did or didn't happen is not the point. The point is that Brendon has a great, lust inspiring voice but Patrick? Patrick has a voice that makes me want to fall in love with him."  
 "Are you?" Ryan asks very quietly. "Because Pete, you did fuck Brendon and then there was that thing with you saying Sanderson was too old to keep up the escort job and now he's gone. I mean, you have this really disturbing way of making the things you say come true so- Patrick's a Tribute. In less than a month, he is going to be dead. So you're not right?"

Spencer is looking at him too. "Don't worry," he says ever the voice of reason. "It's only been a day. No one really falls in love at first sight outside of those trashy data-pad stories they sell for half-credits to lovestruck tweens."

They're both looking at him and he grins at them like of course they're right and they are. There's one week before the launch. The Hunger Games typically last somewhere between two weeks to three, at the outside. In the hundred and eleven years there have been hunger games there have been only been roughly a half a dozen Victors from District 10. The chance that Patrick will buck that trend is slim to none. But that's not why they're here.

"You're both missing the point. The point is the music and the kid has the gift. He's touched by the sound and I bet you anything that when we go in there, he and Brendon will already be playing something."

The three of them cross over to the instrument and open the door and are hit with a wall of noise. Brendon is at the keyboard, playing with his usual brilliance but Patrick? Patrick is holding a guitar and doing more than fiddling with it. Brendon must have shown him five or six chords because he's playing like he was born to hold one. There's a word for the kind latent talent that Patrick possesses. Savant. Prodigy. Genius. 

Brendon is following his lead through a song that Pete's never heard before. It reminds him in tempo of a heard of something large and dangerous running fast over flat ground. As the music washes over them, words crash through Pete's head. He looks over at Ryan who nods. This year, the lyrics will be easy, even if nothing else is. 

~*~*~


	4. A District 10 Bull in a Capitol China Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capitol Cocktails for the Victors on the Lido Deck, the intro parade is surprise and Gerard finally gets to see Frank again. They may use a glass table for something other than eating.

Despite everything, Gerard likes his space in the Capitol in the quiet before the storm. Between getting off the train in the Capitol and the Tribute Parade there is nearly a full day where no one expects a thing from the Victors. This is the one time during the year where can delude himself into thinking that this whole thing is a vacation, not an exercise in death, manipulation, and political control.

Most Victors were in situations like him, filled with hours fills with nothing scheduled to do while the prep teams take a full day with the Tributes. A lot of Victors head to the Training Center to do any one of the following: A. get drunk(which used to be Gerard's first choice, before Frank) B. get strung out on Morphling one last time before they were expected to sober up and look after their tributes C. sleep D. eat E. socialize with other Victors in small banquet that none of the Tributes know about in a sub-basement. 

Some of the Victors go with option F. Option F is to go and do whatever the hell else one did in the Capitol with a full day and a pocketful of credits. Gerard's done that maybe twice in the twelve years he's been a victor but Frank tends to spend the first half day he's in the Capitol on option F. It's a large District that stretches fairly far north but The Justice Building and train station in District 8 is much closer and the route is more direct, straight down through the mountains less than six hours away from the Capitol and Frank loves the body mods available here. So he tends to be out, finishing his latest tattoo or piercing or dying when Gerard's train rolls in. 

Right after he won, Gerard would go straight to his floor and get blasted on rich liquors. Now that Gerard's sober though, he heads down to the small Mentor banquet. He has friends from different Districts and this one of the few times when he gets to spend time with them without any pressure to perform. He drinks rich orange and peach juice with bubbles with Ray, a Victor from District 7, the lumber district to the far north, one of his best friends in the group. Ray won a year before Gerard and they've been fumbling through the process together ever since. 

Ray tells him about Christa, the woman he's been with since before he was chosen as Tribute. He proposed two years ago and the plans for their marriage is finally moving forward. Gerard exchanges this with a story of Mikey and his wife Alicia and how Gerard's trying to talk to two of them into letting him buy them a house. That segueways into discussion about what they've been doing in the six months since the last Victor's Tour Ball. 

Ray's halfway through asking where Elena's gotten to when Frank explodes into the room, grinning like a mad man. To be fair, that's not a completely unfair assessment of his mental state. By some standards, Frank is mad. Of course, every person in the room besides the avoxes has survived the Hunger Games. They're all a little crazy.

The mahogany doors slamming open and the steady thump of steel-toed boots on the marble floor are all the warning any of them get before Frank throws himself at Gerard. Gerard wishes he minded more at how public it is, the way Frank's arms twined around his neck and his legs locked around his lower back. It forced Gerard to catch him, his arms moving so that one goes under Frank's amazing and the other squeezed around his back. Without releasing his grip on Gerard's neck, one of Frank's hands reached up enough to fist in Gerard's hair. Frank tugs his head back then, fuck, they were finally kissing. 

There was always kissing when they first saw each other again. Usually, Frank instigated, something like this or worse. He was infamous all over the Capitol for his antics. Since he staked his claim on Gerard, a good chunk of the fun of the Hunger Games was waiting to see what Frank Iero would do to the Victor of the 4th Quarter Quell this year.

Gerard's not thinking of that now. He's thinking that the latest body mod Frank installed is a tongue piercing. A fucking tongue piercing, his brain screams at him because it's been ages since Frank had one of those and oh fuck, the sex with a tongue piercing had been amazing. This one was round and some sort of plastic instead of the metal from three games ago. 

Mostly, Gerard is overwhelmed by the him-ness of just…Frank. He's small, so small and warm. A creature as small and warm as this shouldn't have survived something as brutal as the Hunger Games. Statistics, pre-game scores, and all common sense dictated that he should've died in the Arena but his size and his warmth and his bright laugh hid a ruthless streak fathoms deep and a body that wasn't soft but wiry and compact. 

His games had been the year after Gerard's. He was thirteen when he was thrown into the Arena. Young and completely unexpected but quiet on his feet, Frank had managed to outlast the others fleeing the cornucopia with a pack that held only a jug for water, a net for catching food and a coil of metal. Frank hid in caves, behind rocks and up trees and waited out the first twenty as they killed each other or the Gamemakers traps brought them down. On his own, Frank took out the last three of the last four one at a time after the Career Pack turned on itself. He garroted them to death as they slept with his wire. Most of them were dead before they could wake up, all of them unable to scream by the time they realized Frank had his coil around his neck. Once they were dead, he took their weapons and supplies before moving to hide for the next strike. 

He had to face last tribute, an older girl from District 2, head on. Every commenter said Frank would've taken her the same way if he could've but the Gamemakers forced them into one on one with an acid rain that had them meeting face to face in a clearing of bright blue grass. The determination Frank showed, under the pouring toxic rain, as he tried to stay hidden proved them right. 

They were both a mess by the time they faced each other, the rain ceasing immediately so that the unnaturally red trees that walled them into the clearing were crystal clear around them as they stared each other down for a moment. Frank nearly gotten his face burned off by the rain for the effort trying to stay hidden for those last few hours, that he hadn't lost the left eye was a miracle of Capitol medicine. Her right arm and leg both maimed from the fight with against her fellow Careers when the pack fractured. 

She was sixteen and nearly six feet tall while Frank was well under five feet so when she made a wild stab with her knife, he managed to get underneath her attack and gut her with the long handled sword he took from one of his sleeping victims. He'd gotten her blood and organs all over his clothes and that was the last image from his games before the canon went of declaring her death, trumpets blared declaring Frank the Victor, and the Capitol scooped him up to erase all his wounds.

Gerard had watched it happen from the screens of the Capitol, his first games as a Mentor, his two Tributes dead in the first week. So he had watched from the couches or the comfort of his bed on the 10th floor of the Training Center or for a few horrible hours in Commentators Table with the announcers that Victors were expected to participate in. The last battle he'd watched from the couch on the 10th floor of the Training Center, his arms around his knees, a half empty bottle of wine clenched in one hand, horrified as always but for the first time? He'd felt little bit awed as well.

Gerard spent a decent chunk of Frank's adolescence soaked in a booze soaked nightmare. Mikey and Elena and his mother managed to dry him out for keeps just in time for Frank to grow up a bit. He was still small, still compact only as a young adult he was also was handsome with wild hair and a sharp chin and laughing eyes. He was also an obnoxious shit who decided that now that the Victor of the 4th Quarter Quell was sober enough to get a decent hard-on Frank should be the one to give it good ride. Then one turned into two which turned into three which somehow turned into more than eight years. 

Frank has become a real man and most of the desperate animal edge has faded. He has muscles but they are thin padding over bones that Gerard can feel beneath his fingers if he tries. He is formidable yet as strong as he is Gerard never forgets for a second the scars Frank should have, how close he came to dying in his games, how near it was that they never had this at all. He saw it happen just like everyone. Unlike everyone else, Gerard has been blessed to know the person Frank's grown into. 

So, Gerard kisses him back and marvels at the way Frank tastes. His flavor is his own unique signature, always is, beyond description. Then there's his tight grip, pulling his hair so hard hurts, finger nails digging into the soft skin of Gerard's neck. It's violent and painful but every second Frank sinks in with teeth and claws his body is screaming "I love you," and Gerard knows it.

Gerard groans into his mouth once before he pulls back, panting. "Frank, hey." He glances around to see if anyone's paying attention. Ray's wandered off, knowing that now that Frank is here, Gerard's attention has a new owner. 

All but the very newest Mentor, a fifteen year old Career girl from District 4, aren’t paying any attention. They're used to this. Frank and Gerard are the sappy, oversexed couple of the Mentors, just as Elena is the elder Mentor they all turn to, even the most arrogant Victors, and she in turn is generous with assistance before or after the games – though not during, and the cluster of District 1 and 2 Mentors don’t like to socialize outside their Districts. These are the facts of life as a Mentor in the Hunger Games. 

The newest Mentor looks nervous though, still afraid of Capitol politics and what's expected of Victors in their new Mentor roles but Gerard doesn’t pull away from Frank to assist her. There are enough District 4 Victors to help her. She'll get used to the system. They all do. 

"Hmm?" Frank murmurs, rubbing his nose against Gerard's. "What? I'm not allowed to miss you, Oh Great and Glorious Victor of the 4th Quarter Quell?" Frank practically purrs as he slides down Gerard's body. It's the most unfair, how good he feels. "Because I did. I missed you like air, like cool water on my throat. Tell me you'll come down to the fifth floor tonight, Gee, or that I can come up to ten. Please. I haven’t had you inside me in six months. If I have to wait one more day I may actually die."

Gerard combs his hands through Frank's hair. It's long now. It hangs in his eyes and around his ears. It's inky black with hits of blond underneath and splashes of red and blue that only appears if the strands are moved just right. He pushes his forehead into Frank's, nuzzling his face against his lover's. "Shh, Frankie, let's not talk about this here."

"Yes, we should." Frank is practically panting for it. "Just pick. My floor or yours? Or, oh, fuck, remember the 107th? Between interviews in the television studio bathroom on that sink? There's a bathroom over past the dessert table. We could-"

"No," Gerard says, bumping Frank with his nose harder than a simple caress. "Prying eyes. Some things are private. You know that." It could be in reference to their fellow Mentors but Frank knows that’s not what he means and sighs. He actually sags against Gerard, putting his full body weight against him, nuzzling against Gerard's pulse point. 

It has been nearly half a year and Gerard can't blame him for being desperate. Gerard's aching for it too. So badly that if he thought they could away with it, he would fuck Frank into the nearest wall right here, right now. 

Only the prying eyes he mentioned weren't their fellow Victors. It was the Capitol, with its cameras and listening equipment everywhere. It's only dozens of long conversations with his grandmother out in the cow fields about the politics of the Capitol and the Districts that has finally made Gerard understand what he and Frank are really risking by loving each other. 

Connection between the Districts isn’t exactly encouraged. After all, the whole point of the Hunger Games is to annually pit all the Districts against each other for sport, to the death. Elena had to talk around that fact a few times for Gerard really see the symbolism of the pageantry. She's been feeding him what he likes to call, bitter reality pills, in small doses ever since he won and this is the latest one.

Now he is seeing a bit more clearly, the divisionary tactics are of course obvious. Information exchanges are tightly regulated. When Tributes talk about each other's Districts during the games, it is edited out of the television feed. He and Lyn-z talked about life in 4 and 10 for countless hours during the long pauses between the explosions of violence in their games. He knows, because Elena and Lyn-Z's father both said a few choice words, that little to none of their conversations made the air. 

Mentors are some of the only District citizens who know anything about other Districts. The only ones who travel, besides the transport officials who run the trains, are the Victors who take the Victory Tours. There's an unspoken rule that they don't speak of what they see when they step off the trains. It maintains the status quo.

The Capitol isn't a fan of having the Districts unified in any way shape or form. If it could avoid the Career Districts of 1, 2, and 4 from teaming up in the Arena? It probably would. It probably detests when Career packs, invite strong players from other Districts into the group even more. But it can't stop that. It can only moderate what happens outside by keeping everything separated, fractured, and strictly controlled. 

Situations like the antics between him and Frank are unheard of. Victors from two different Districts are not supposed to fall in love. It bucks the system of partition on which Panem runs. Of course, when Frank and Gerard fell together, they were hardly thinking of politics and national consequences. 

Gerard was thinking that it was his first Hunger Games sober and that Frank was beautiful, open and wanted him. Frank was seventeen at the time, so he was thinking with his dick not much else, though he did tell Gerard later when they were tangled together, aching in the best ways and sticky with sweat, that he'd had a crush on Gerard since the exit interview of his games which Gerard found both ridiculous and totally believable. Frank was exactly the type to fixate and then hone in. It's how he won his games after all. By the time Gerard realized the whole situation could be problematic, it was too late. He was in love and he wasn't willing to lose one of the best things in his life, not even for the Capitol and Frank? Well, Frank was fearless, and not in the good way. 

So they are tolerated by the officials because they were so young when they started. After all Frank was seventeen, still technically child by the Reaping laws (and thinking with his dick and very little else if you ask Gerard), and Gerard not much older when their affair began so no one could blame them for knowing better. If the Capitol could get away with breaking them up, it probably would have. Unfortunately, if attempts had been made by Capitol players early on, they'd failed because the two of them had been so blind to anything but each other it was impossible. He and Frank were too busy spending all the free time they gained after they lost their Tributes making defiling all the lounging-style furniture the Capitol seemed to favor. 

Now, they are what Elena calls _fixtures_. The citizens of the Capitol adore seeing the two of them together. It's a splash, a delight, to see the Hunger Games ultimate couple: the heir to Panem's eldest living Victor and the youngest non-career Victor in over fifty years who are so dedicated to each other that they have been together more than half a decade and still can't keep their hands to themselves. They're a good romance and as Gerard's Stylist Brian once told him, everyone loves a good romance. 

That said, there is a line they need to toe. Strategy doesn’t end once you exit the Arena. His grandmother has been beating that into Gerard's head since he limped out of his games, half his scalp hanging on by threads of fair, a chunk of his right calf gone, a spear wound through the fleshy part of his right stomach oozing bile and gore, and his face drenched in blood- although most of that? Wasn’t his own. Before the medics pulled him from her, she had kissed his forehead and murmured, "Stay strong, Gerard. We're not done playing the games."

She's been helping him try to figure out what the next step is for years and Gerard thinks he's figured it out. He just doesn't know if he can get Frank on board. He's too wild for it, most likely. It's like putting a leash on a pissed off honey badger and expecting it to play nice with puppies. Still. He has to try.

He leans forward and nips at Frank's lower lip because his lover does well when his pleasure is mixed with a little pain. "Later. If it's at all possible, you can come up to ten, all right?"

"Swear?"

"Yeah. We've got a new escort and she doesn’t really know how to police the situation yet. Besides, Elena will want to see you."

Frank grins and goes up on his toes so that he can speak with every word making their lips touch. "That's because I'm irresistible." 

"Yeah, just be careful, Mr. Irresistible. Wouldn't want your ego to overinflate your huge head and make it explode."

Gerard watches him drop back down to stand flat on his feet and grin. "You love me and my big head." 

"Yeah I do. Your big head and your small feet."

Frank rolls his eyes. "They are not small." 

"They kinda are," Ray muses. He grins, big and dopey. A person would never know how he can take a person's head off with one swing of an ax by looking at that smile. Gerard tries not to think about that, he focuses on the smile itself, how it really is sincere and how Ray is honestly one of the nicest people he knows. "Hey Frank. What'd you get this time?"

"New tongue stud and tattoos - birds on my hipbones. They've got this new ink that changes color based on body heat and contact temperature so that'll be fun to mess with. And ya know," Frank shakes his head, "The hair. I'll be getting couple hoops through the left eyebrow too but I didn't have time not for at least two days. Tributes first. Gotta take care of the kids before anything else."

Gerard does not groan. He does not. Even though Frank is fucking cheating with the birds. "That sounds, uh..." He trails off because 'lickable' probably isn't the right word here. Ray's standing right there and he was raised with some manners

A few feet over, a District 1 Victor, Gerard thinks his name is Flare, snorts and calls out "Hey Iero, nice mods." He's tall, broad across the chest and shoulders but with a face like a pug dog, mashed upwards into his face with a heavy brow and a dent in his chin that is a bit too deep. Genetics gave him that, not the games. "Those how the Capitol tell its pet lovebirds to trim their feathers this year? After all, they wouldn't want you to look too much like a scraggly brat from the slums of District 8 when they can make you look like a polished Capitol citizen for the cameras."

Frank's eyes narrow at that. Gerard glances at Ray and they both sigh and step back. This is going nowhere good but they both know better than to try and stop it. An angry Frank is an unstoppable Frank. Better he get it out here, in the private of the sub-basement where all the Victors are free to mingle, or argue, in peace before the politics get thick.

"Just because your entire District can't wait to hurl themselves into the Arena to die for shits and giggles doesn't mean you know the inner workings of the Capitol any better than I do." Frank says finally, arms crossed over his chest. "So far, all you know for sure is what I tell you which is this - when I drag my tongue over my partner's cock tonight with the stud in, his eyes will roll back in his head and he'll come faster than the trains and harder than the diamonds in the jewelry out on the streets. How much of your winnings are you going to have to spend to convince someone to make you come like that, Flare? A month's worth? Two?" Frank grins, all teeth. "Three?" 

A pair of much older District 1 Victors wrap hands around Flare's huge upper arms before Frank is even finished speaking. "One day someone's going to cut that tongue out of your head, Iero. Then you'll be serving me dinner just like any other sad shitty avox."

Something twists on Frank's face and he nods."Maybe. It could happen to any of us but whatever I say that makes that happen'll be my choice. Just like the mods are my choice. When the Capitol says jump, I'll say how high but you're a muscle-head, knuckle-dragging Career who doesn't know shit and how high I jump for Panem's got fuck all to do with my tattoos and piercings. We get tattoos and piercings in District 8 too, Career, but I earned these. I earned the right to the body mods the same way I earned the money and the house and all the rest of it. The Reaping pulled me into the Arena for District 8 and I lived through it."

He stares Flare down. Flare was a volunteer, built like a machine and over a foot taller than Frank but Frank glares into his eyes without backing down. If anything, Flare looks like he wants to step back. Gerard feels a mix of worry and attraction rush through his veins. If this goes right? It's one more proverbial kill for Frank, one more way he's claimed dominance over another opponent who's sadly underestimated him. If it goes wrong, the mics and cameras that could be anywhere might catch him and do who knows what.

When Frank continues, his voice is calm and even. "I've always wondered how it feels to be Reaped in District 1. As far as I can tell, you've got dozens of kids of both genders clambering to volunteer yet you all just seem so prepared. You watch it all on TV and you all seem so calm but I still wonder." 

Flare has gone limp and his two companions have let go of him and backed away. Everyone in the room is staring at Frank. Gerard is just trying not to hold his breath. Frank could talk for awhile and if he does that he might pass out. 

"Iero," Flare begins, puffing up again. He won the 110th games. He is young and dumb and doesn't know what he's doing. "I don't know what you think-"

"The Reaping in 8 is terrifying because there's no choice. Participating is your paying your due to Panem," Frank says, ignoring him. "It was even more for me because I was so young and my mom, she was so upset, crying and clinging and saying my name over and over, it scared me even more. She passed away while I was gone. I didn't find out until I got back to my District after the Games were over."

The entire room is silent now. Gerard knows all this. Frank told him, whispered into his neck during their second games together, clinging to him after a horrible nightmare. It wasn't of the Arena, of creeping through the blue grass and red trees of the 101st Hunger Games but of his mother dying without Frank there. 

Frank told him, each word spoken directly into the skin behind Gerard's ear, that when time was up, she wouldn't go. The Peacekeepers tore Frank from her arms and dragged her from the holding room in the Justice Building. They threw her out the front door and she fell down the stairs to the ground, cracking her head as she landed. "Dad said he got her to a doctor but she had a brain hemorrhage and died before I got to the Capitol," Frank whispered. "I didn't even find out until I got back to my District. They wouldn't have told me at all. I'd have died not knowing if I hadn't won."

He remembers stroking Frank's hair and promising, not that everything was okay, that things would get better, but that he was there. "I'm right here," he had told Frank. "I'm not going to leave you, I'm staying right here. I'm here for you. I promise, Frankie. I'm here." He had held Frank so tight and never let go again, at least not emotionally. 

"You were seventeen when you volunteered right?" Frank asks Flare.

Flare nods.

"I was thirteen when I was chosen at the Reaping. My games lasted about three weeks so I missed my fourteenth birthday while the doctors treated my wounds. I was unconscious for it. My escort decided to celebrate it on the train ride home." Frank laughs and shakes his head. "She actually got me a cake and candles." 

Flare swallows hard and tries again. "Look, Iero, I'm-"

Frank doesn't let him finish. "Wait," he holds up both hands, sliding into the smooth, friendly tone that makes him more dangerous than any of his wild outbursts. "What I'm trying to point out is that you volunteered. That was your choice. You had the ability and right to make that choice. You're standing here, a Victor, so for you? Not only was that a choice, it was a good one too. More power to you for that, man. "

"I- Thanks." Flare manages before Frank steamrolls on. 

"But for me, losing my mother wasn't my choice. Going to the Hunger Games wasn't my choice but I lived. So now I come twice a year, every year just like everyone else in this room, which isn't a choice. I fulfill my duties and responsibilities, honorably and to the best of my abilities just like everyone else, which also isn't a choice. On the other hand, when I have time? I get body mods. They feel make me good, I like the way they look, and some of them even improve my sex life. Even better than the sex element is the fact that every single body mod I install is a new choice. Yes, the Capitol likes to dress us both up and parade me and Gerard around now and then. I'm okay with that because how much I love him? It's a whole damn lot and it's real. I don't mind people seeing." 

He turns and looks at Gerard for a moment, eyes asking, and they both know. Gerard nods, granting him permission. He's charmed when Frank ducks his head and smiles, just a little. "If I'm honest, I kind of like it. I get to show off to the whole damn world that he's mine." 

Then smile falls off his face and he looks at Flare with that same ruthless cold in his eyes he's had since his games. "But the body mods? They're fucking mine. So seeing as they're none of your goddamn business in the first fucking place, and I'd thank you to keep your fucking opinions about them to your fucking self. Do we have any fucking problems with that arrangement, Flare? "

Flare's cheeks are bright red and he takes a full three steps back. Then he holds up both hands as if to say "no weapons here" and nods. "Yeah. Yeah that's fine. It's cool and I like your hair. I didn't mean it like that." 

Frank is a fairly forgiving man, which Gerard used to find surprising. After all, there's the fire and venom that's boiling under Frank's skin all the time. That doesn't go hand in hand with forgiveness. Gerard thinks now that it has something to do with the level of desperation at which everyone is living, all the time. So he's the only person in the room, besides maybe Ray, who isn't shocked when Frank just shrugs. "Don't worry about it. You Careers aren’t known for your brains anyway."

The jab is gentle, a non-Career insult that is longstanding, over a hundred years old and meant to say _you may be a lapdog but you're one of us anyway._ Flare just rolls his eyes. "Yeah yeah. I know. We're all meatheads."

Gerard reaches out and takes Frank's hand in his, lacing their fingers together, tugging him away from the group. Now that it's over, that Frank's counted freaking coup on a Career and managed to do so in a way protects them if the Capitol was listening overhearing all at once? He is so hard he could hammer fucking nails."Frank. You ready to go up to ten?"

Frank beams at him. "Fuck. Yes." 

Ray meets their eyes across the room and winks at them. He gives them a hand wave that says he'll cover for you. Once Frank sees that, he's dragging Gerard out of the room and over to the elevator.

Frank may have been the one begging for it before, but Gerard is the one who gets fucked when they get up to the apartments on the tenth floor. They kiss the entire ride up the elevator and Frank backs him out into the apartment until they hit the glass dining table. It's bare, the avox servants haven't been in with the food yet as the Tributes are still with their Stylists. So when Gerard's back hits the table Frank giggles and pulls his mouth away. "Here?" he asks before licking a stripe up Gerard's neck. "Tell me I can have you here, Gee, please."

Gerard says nothing, instead turns and plants both palms on the table in a silent consent. Frank is on him seconds later, undoing his pants only has much as he has to in order to get inside. He has lube in his pocket, of course he does. He was out in the Capitol all morning. He could have anything in his pockets but he has this and he's inside Gerard a heartbeat later which makes everything, his whole world, stop.

"Oh," Frank breathes, bent over the table and Gerard's back, his mouth only touching the spot under Gerard's jaw and neck met at the odd angle. "Oh fuck, I missed you."

"Love you," Gerard returns and then Frank is fucking him. Gerard plants both hands on the table, bracing himself with sweaty palms that leave streaks on the glass as Frank drives him so against the glass table over and over so hard it’s a wonder they don't beak it by the time they both come, gasping each other's names. 

Gerard sags after, cheek pressed against the cool glass for a moment while Frank pulls out. Then he manages to muster the energy to spin in Frank's arms enough for them to press their foreheads together, tight. "Tribute Parade's soon. You'll need to get to your team. Rest of the 10 could come up any minute."

Frank nuzzles against him, the tip of his nose rubbing at the curve of Gerard's cheek. "I know."

"I hate this part."

"Me too," Frank agrees, pressing dry kiss to the spot just beside Gerard's eye. "You never know. One of our kids may win this year."

They never have before. Neither of them have had a Tribute survive but for some reason, they both still have hope. "Maybe."

"Can I still come up tonight?"

"I don’t know. We'll have to see," Gerard sighs. Frank nods. He kisses Gerard one more time, hand in the back of Gerard's hair before he makes his way over to the elevator. It's glass so Frank waves as he drops down and disappears out of sight. 

He cleans up the table as best he can with his shirt and heads to the room that's been his for the last eleven years. There's a full wardrobe waiting for him, as always. Brian is Bebe's Stylist for these games, but he's still got Gerard's back even after all these years. Every item is done in soft fabrics but the options are divided in all black or in bright colors depending on Gerard's mood. 

He doesn't go with all black because he is not a drunk, angry kid anymore. Gerard can admit that he's still a little angry, though. He probably always will be but he doesn't want it to show. Not the time. Now's not the moment for a full on color explosion either, though the older he gets, the more in love with color he seems to be falling. Tonight, he's not what people should be looking at. 

So he picks out an outfit that's a little from Column A and a little from Column B. Very diplomatic, he can here Elena's voice murmur in his mind. Fucked out and prepared for what will be a long evening, he takes a fast shower then drops face first into the bed, rolling himself into blankets and falling into a fitful nap. The last of his fellow mentors, a beautiful blonde woman named Debbie in her early fifties, pages him awake via the communicator so gets dressed and makes his way to join his fellow District 10 Mentors to watch the Parade from their place of honor in the stands. 

He hasn’t seen Brian or Patrick or Bebe since they arrived in the Capitol. He has no idea what they're going to do. Before Brian, they used to dress District 10 up as cows or sheep. One memorable year, Brian's superior thought goats would be fun. This year, though, it's different. He has no idea what the hell the new guy has proposed and since he hasn’t gotten to speak to Brian in months, he doesn’t know what they're planning. He has to wait like everyone else. 

The image that Brian and the new guy, Pete, have come up with is… perfect really. The chariot is a golden replica of the Minotaur, the half bull-half man creature from that story Gerard read one of the very few times he was allowed in one of the Capitol libraries. In the story, an old king sent women into a labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur every decade or so. Gerard remembers thinking that the whole system was not that unlike the Hunger Games. 

Most people won't know that story though. They've never even heard of the Minotaur. He told the story to Frank one night when they were in bed together and he looked at Gerard like he'd grown a new head. The announcer's voice is talking about the unity between man and beast in the livestock community of District 10 so it's clear that most of the Capitol, and probably the rest of Panem, isn't seeing what he is. 

They're seeing the snarl of the bull-man's turned up lips. They're looking at the horns which are almost as long as the horses that pull it and wickedly sharp. The nostrils of the face give off little bursts of carefully contained flame every few seconds which is enough to send the crowed into a tizzy.

What has Gerard grabbing for his grandmother's hand and drawing in a sharp breath are the Tributes. They are… the only word for it is _blooded_. They are dressed in pure red – the leather jackets they both wear, the pants on Patrick, the skirt on Bebe, the silk shirts beneath on both of them. Their hair is slicked back and looks wet as if a bucket of fresh hot blood was just poured over their heads and their faces are artistically smeared with the stuff on their cheeks, chins, noses and foreheads. They look like they've been in battle and have already emerged triumphant. 

They also look like they are on their way into the charnel house and everyone is getting a preview of what could become of them when everything is over.

Gerard looks around and the other District 10 Victors are all looking back at each other. No one knows who said what to which Stylist, but this entire display is Gore Corps all the way. For the first time, Gerard feels like his District being honestly represented. They bathe their children in blood as early in their lives as they can but it's not enough. Every camera shot of Bebe and Patrick's face reinforce what the four of them already know – that any eternity in the Gore Corps can't prepare you for the reality but at least it can take some of the edge off.

"The new guy's good," Glenn says quietly. "Like, really fucking good."

"Yes," Elena murmurs, so quietly she can barely be heard over the crowd screaming for District 10. "Yes he is." Gerard turns to look at her as she taps her lip with one bony finger. "Although I can't say I'm a fan. I'm not a fan of blatant displays."

Gerard shivers, just a little. There's more there. He doesn't know what she's saying. He'll have to turn it over a dozen times or more before he gets it but he'll figure it out. She smiles at him and winks and knows she has faith that he'll get it too. 

~*~*~


End file.
